In the November 8th 2022 election, residents of even-numbered districts will vote on their San Francisco District Supervisor. District Supervisors make up the Board of Supervisors, the legislative body for the City and County of San Francisco. The Board of Supervisors makes crucial decisions that affect and shape the everyday lives of all San Franciscans.
The San Francisco Chronicle recently polled 1,653 San Franciscans on the city’s areas of growth. Out of 72 topics, the most common areas for growth highlighted were homelessness, public safety, economic inequalities, affordable housing, drug addiction and government accountability.
photo courtesy of Mission Local
As voters walk into the polls on election day, they will have an opportunity to vote for candidates whose backgrounds, passions and qualifications align with their concerns for the city. 11 candidates are running for Board of Supervisors to represent five districts and four candidates running for District Attorney.
Election Day is November 8th, and polls are open from 7 AM to 8 PM. Vote-by-mail ballots will be mailed before or on Election Day.
District 2
District 2 is located on the northern side of San Francisco. It includes Anza Vista, Fort Mason, Cathedral Hill, Cow Hollow, Laurel Heights, Marina, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights and Presidio Terrace. Catherine Stefani, the incumbent, is unopposed for District 2 Supervisor.
Catherine Stefani (incumbent)
Stefani was appointed to fill the seat of District 2 Supervisor by the former District 2 Supervisor and Mayor Mark Ferrell in 2018. She is Vice Chair of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee. Stefani prioritizes finding solutions for homelessness, bringing accountability to city politics, funding street clean-ups and fighting car break-ins. Stefani is a former prosecutor for the City and County of San Francisco.
She began her career as the Deputy District Attorney for Contra Costa County. She then served as a Chief of Staff for two San Francisco supervisors for nine years. She was later appointed County Clerk in 2016 by former Supervisor Mark Farrell.
During her first year in office in 2018, she spearheaded the effort to introduce a complete ghost gun ban in San Francisco, banning 3D-printed guns — the first full ban in California. Stefani is a national advocate for gun safety and the spokesperson for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
In 2021, Stefani led the reform to increase accountability in the city’s monetary grant process by requiring stricter and more formal oversight. This happened after the city issued 5,746 grants that totaled $5.4 million over three years with no laws that set standards for transparency, documentation or fairness in selection.
Stefani became the first elected official in San Francisco to endorse the recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin earlier this year. She voted against approving the $15 million of funding proposed for the San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project. Stefani was also in support of the school board recall.
Stefani did not respond to requests for comment.
District 4
District 4 is located on the west side of San Francisco and includes Golden Gate Park, Sunset, Lakeshore, Merced Manor, Parkside and Stonestown neighborhoods. Candidates running for District 4 Supervisor are Gordon Mar and Joel Engardio. Mar is the incumbent.
Gordon Mar
(incumbent)
Mar was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2018 and is the Chair of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee. In his role as District 4 Supervisor, Mar has championed increased public safety, enhanced educational programs, environmental justice, labor justice and affordable housing.
Mar began as a community organizer to fight for working families and everyday San Franciscans. He has served as Co-Founder and Executive Director of Jobs with Justice San Francisco and also as the Executive Director of the Chinese Progressive Association.
In February 2022, Mar introduced the 5-point Community Safety Plan for the Sunset neighborhood. The Safety Plan emphasized collaboration between community organizations and the police. Solutions include increased officer foot and bike patrols, dedicated community safety ambassadors, senior escorts and free video doorbell installation for seniors. The Sunset Safety Squad and Sunset Safety Network started as a result of this plan.
Mar also spearheaded the Public Safety Violence Prevention and Victim Services Plan to take preventative action and increase support services for victims, especially for victims of anti-Asian hate crimes.
Mar introduced the Crime Prevention Through Community Policing Act, which requires each of the San Francisco Police Department’s 10 stations to develop a community policing plan. The plan urges the department to expand its foot patrol and create language access strategies. It was approved by the Board of Supervisors in June 2022.
Mar also worked with Mayor London Breed and other Supervisors on the Great Highway compromise. In July 2022, he introduced legislation that transitioned the Great Highway’s weekend compromise from a temporary to a pilot program. The Great Highway is currently open to cars on weekdays and is kept as a recreational space on the weekends.
Mar remained neutral on the recalls of former District Attorney Chesa Boudin and the school board.
Mar did not respond to requests for comment.
Joel Engardio
Engardio has worked as a journalist for over 20 years and leads an organization called Stop Crime SF. Engardio is a board member of the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club and the United Democratic Club. His three priorities are education, housing and safety.
Engardio strives to apply his journalism skills to understand how the city can fix its issues as Supervisor. “I reported about City Hall, I covered the bureaucracy. I understand how things work or how things are broken. For instance, the budget has doubled in the past decade, but nothing is twice as good. So, I would like to take the journalism mindset and use it from the inside to see how we can analyze and fix things that aren’t working in San Francisco,” Engardio said.
Engardio ran for District 7 Supervisor unsuccessfully in the 2016 and 2020 elections. He felt drawn to run for Supervisor to address the issues that are causing families to leave San Francisco.
To address the housing crisis, Engardio believes in approving a more diverse range of buildings. “Everyone’s got to play their part and we have to offer a whole menu of housing types from affordable to market rate,” Engardio said. “It makes sense to build housing above businesses. The businesses [will] have more customers, literally living above them, and it’s a good space to put housing that doesn’t exist right now.”
Engardio supported the recall of Boudin and led the school board recall campaign.
District 6
District 6 includes South of Market, Rincon Hill, Showplace Square, Mission Bay, East Cut and Treasure Island. Candidates running for District 6 Supervisor are incumbent Matt Dorsey, Honey Mahogany, Billie Cooper and Cherelle Jackson.
Matt Dorsey
(incumbent)
Dorsey was appointed by Mayor London Breed in May 2022 to fill the vacancy of California State Assembly member Matt Haney. He is President of the Treasure Island Mobility Management Agency. Dorsey stated that his top three priorities as Supervisor are public safety, affordable housing, and drug addiction.
Dorsey began his career as Research Director of the Democratic National Committee’s campaign to pass President Clinton’s Healthcare Reform Act of 1993. He worked to legalize same-sex marriage in San Francisco and worked on the S.F. Kids vs. Big Tobacco Coalition No on Prop C 2019 Campaign. Most recently, he served as the Director of Communications for the San Francisco Police Department.
Dorsey’s experience in drug recovery has made him a strong believer in abuse recovery programs as a solution to San Francisco’s current drug crisis. He supports supervised safe-consumption sites and abstinence-focused rehabilitation programs for residents.
As he discussed the impacts of COVID-19, Dorsey also highlighted the impacts of
overdose deaths. “There’s another (health crisis) going on that nobody seems to be paying attention to that is twice as deadly, and that’s from overdose deaths. As somebody in recovery, it’s hard to watch,” Dorsey said. During his first month in office, Dorsey introduced the ‘Right to Recovery’ initiatives. The legislation includes a plan for police to arrest drug dealers and confiscate all illegal substances. It also champions more sober residencies, treatment facilities and supervised consumption sites. Contrary to his opponent’s view, Dorsey opposes providing drugs to people at consumption sites.
Dorsey also secured $3 million in funding alongside Supervisor Mandelman and Mayor Breed to reduce HIV infections in the upcoming San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) budget.
Dorsey is also the only District 6 candidate to publicly state he does not support defunding the police. Earlier this year, Dorsey became the second member of the Board of Supervisors to endorse the recall of Boudin.
Honey Mahogany
Mahogany has former experience with District 6 as a legislative aide and former Chief of Staff to Matt Haney. She was elected to the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee in March 2020 and was elected as the Chair in 2021. She has also worked as a social worker on issues of homelessness, mental health and drug addiction for two decades. Mahogany views housing, the climate crisis, public safety and raising wages for public workers as her top priorities.
Mahogany led Land Use in the District 6 Office where she built 400 units of affordable housing. She also said that “as Supervisor, I will continue to push for housing with a focus on social housing.”
Mahogany supports converting vacant office spaces downtown into housing. “Let’s turn downtown into a true cosmopolitan district,” Mahogany tweeted.
To confront the climate crisis, Mahogany worked in Haney’s office to increase $1 million in funding for the San Francisco Department of Environment. If elected, she would advocate for a San Francisco Green New Deal.
Mahogany has stated that she would redistribute funds from the Police Department to serve other purposes. She would increase funding for nonprofits and healthcare workers to target drug addiction and provide higher wages for mental health experts and nurses.
At the SF Standard debate, she stated her support for providing clean drugs to users at overdose prevention sites contrary to her opponent’s views. “We should be doing this as part of overdose prevention sites — providing clean drugs to people so that they don’t die, they know what they’re getting, and yes, then getting them into care and helping them recover,” Mahogany said. “As a result, we will put drug dealers out of business.”
Mahogany opposed the recall of former District Attorney Boudin, and the school board recalls.
Mahogany did not respond to requests for comment.
Billie Cooper
Cooper is a grassroots activist in San Francisco. Cooper is a leader in San Francisco’s Black, Transgender and HIV-positive communities, and has been an active member of local organizations such as the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, UCSF AIDS and the Black Coalition on AIDS. She is a firm believer in building more low-income housing and ending the drug crisis the city faces as her two main priorities.
Cooper said she wants to allocate more funding to mental health and healthcare professionals to address drug addiction in the city. “San Francisco has pressing and noticeable issues with drug dealing and drug users,” Cooper said. “The drug dealers are flourishing on the streets of San Francisco with the drug users right next to them dying. It is the age-old solutions that need a tweak so they will work better.”
Cherelle Jackson
Jackson currently works as a Clerk for the City and County of San Francisco. She has worked as an educator at schools, teaching underserved youth and immigrants history, English, physics, art and computer coding. Jackson’s focus is investing in marginalized communities and raising wages for public service workers.
“We need to make sure that our underserved and marginalized communities are [provided for]. This means investing in small businesses, healthcare, seniors, disabled and veterans,” Jackson said.
“I also want to make sure that our mental healthcare workers, substance abuse workers and case managers have the wages they need to survive in this city,” Jackson added. “No one dedicated to public service should be working paycheck to paycheck.”
Jackson is also the President of the Black Voices and Allies Leadership Committee and has also served as the Director of Communications of the Justice Equity Diversity Inclusion Committee for the California Democratic Party.
District 8
District 8 includes Noe Valley, Glen Park, Mission Dolores, Dolores Heights, Diamond Heights, Twin Peaks and Eureka Valley. Running for District 8 Supervisor are Rafael Mandelman and Kate Stoia. Rafael Mandelman is the incumbent.
Rafael Mandelman
(incumbent)
Mandelman has been a member of the Board of Supervisors since 2018, and is Vice-Chair of the Rules Committee and Transbay Joint Powers Authority. Mandelman is also Chair of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority.
Additionally, he has worked as Oakland’s Deputy City Attorney and was a City College Trustee. Mandelman is committed to addressing homelessness and mental health issues within his district and believes in expanding conservatorship in the city. His drive to address the issues of mental health and homelessness stems from growing up and witnessing his mother struggle with mental health.
In 2019, with majority support from the Board of Supervisors, Mandelman authored legislation to implement housing conservatorships for unhoused people deemed unable to care for themselves due to serious mental illness or substance abuse disorder. He worked alongside Mayor London Breed to authorize local implementation of the Housing Conservatorship Program (SB 1045) by Senator Scott Weiner to expand the City’s conservatorship tools. The Office of the Public Conservator now oversees more than 600 vulnerable individuals in the program.
Mandelman has also worked with Mayor Breed to use the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund and the 2019 Affordable Housing (Prop A) Funds to purchase the building at 1939 Market to convert it into permanent affordable housing for low-income seniors.
In March 2022, he passed an ordinance to curb the ability to build luxury single-family monster homes, unnecessarily large homes for small amounts of people. The ordinance passed, only applying to District 8.
Mandelman fought for Prop C 2022 to create a Homelessness and Oversight Commission for the Department of Supportive Housing.
Mandelman did not take a stance on the recall of former District Attorney Chesa Boudin and supported the recall of the school board.
Kate Stoia
Stoia is a lawyer and long-term resident of District 8. Stoia was hired in 1990 to work with the Substance Abuse Prevention and Intervention Specialists (SAPIS) program to spread awareness of HIV and AIDS while the government was taking a hands-off approach. This was her first introduction to San Francisco politics.
Stoia decided to run for the Supervisor seat after Supervisor Mandelman rejected a proposed housing development on 1469 Stevenson Street in the Tenderloin in October 2021.
“That kind of voting on a proxy fight that has nothing do with housing, in the middle of a housing crisis, does not serve the city and does not serve District 8,” Stoia said.
Stoia said that she has seen “the dysfunction of the Board of Supervisors in City Hall’’ and its detrimental impacts on everyone.
Some of her goals include making housing more affordable as a way of encouraging people to stay in the city while slso addressing homelessness. She also hopes to support small businesses
District 10
District 10 is located on the southeastern side of San Francisco. It includes the Bayview, Dogpatch, Portola, Potrero Hill and Visitacion Valley. Running for District 10 Supervisor is incumbent Shamann Walton and Brian Sam Adam.
Shamann Walton
(incumbent)
Walton was elected Supervisor in 2019 and elected President of the Board of Supervisors in 2021. Walton believes the most pressing issues are affordable housing, homelessness and public safety.
Some of Walton’s accomplishments as Supervisor include creating 100% affordable housing projects, three navigation centers to address homelessness and the District 10 Safety Plan.
In 2019, Walton worked to co-author legislation banning JUUL and e-cigarettes in San Francisco. “People told me we were crazy to go up against Big Tobacco. [They] told me we wouldn’t be successful,” Walton said. “The fact that we were able to ban e-cigarettes in San Francisco because they were targeting our young people [is] something that I’m very proud of.”
Walton created the 100% Affordable Housing and Educator Streamlining Program which increased housing stock counted as affordable housing for teachers. Through this, he secured 135 apartment units for low and middle-income teachers in the Shirley Chisholm Village. Walton has also implemented alternatives to help get people off the streets promptly through the transitional housing RV shelter site at Pier 94.
In December 2020, Walton introduced the District 10 Safety Plan. The plan increases community ambassadors, police foot and bike patrols in ‘hot spots’ and neighborhood watch groups. Part of the plan includes proposed funding for a violence prevention coordinator for District 10 to oversee violence prevention. It also promoted cleaner and safer streets through overnight cleaning crews, greater pedestrian and bicyclist safety, and added lighting in abandoned and low-traffic areas.
Walton opposed the recall of Boudin and the school board recall.
Brian Sam Adam
Adam is a Public Information Officer for San Francisco’s Department of Technology. Adam hopes to create safer streets, expand funding for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), and secure bike racks, e-bikes and scooters for easy access.
Adam has interned for Assemblymember Evan Low where he developed an interest in politics. Adam is running for Supervisor because he wants San Francisco to be a more livable city, and for more people to transport by public transit and bike.
